Teresa Obolevitch

Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900) is widely regarded as Russia's greatest religious philosopher, indeed as one of the great religious philosophers of modern times or of all times. Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote that he is "perhaps second only to Thomas Aquinas as the greatest artist of order and organization in the history of thought." His metaphysics of all-unity, conception of humanity's divine potential and vocation ("divine humanity"), mystical visions of Sophia the Wisdom of God, social ideal of "free theocracy," and ecumenism form an incredibly powerful religious-philosophical worldview. At the heart of that worldview is the gospel message, "God is love" (1 John 4:16). This volume, consisting of fifteen chapters by scholars from around the world, offers a nuanced, comprehensive look at Soloviev's metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, conception of good and evil, social philosophy, and faith in cosmic redemption.

Nikolai Lossky, a prominent Russian philosopher, made significant contributions to the dissemination of Russian thought in the United States. His visits to America, especially his lectures at Stanford University in 1933 and later work at St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary, reflected his efforts to engage with Western academia. Despite language barriers and ideological opposition to his metaphysics, Lossky’s philosophy attracted a dedicated circle of admirers. His significant achievement in America was the publication of History of Russian Philosophy, a landmark work that presented Russian intellectual heritage to the West. Although not fully integrated into mainstream American philosophy, his legacy endures through his writings, lectures, and the influence he exerted on his students. The article attempts to reconstruct Lossky’s presence in American academic life.

In _From Onomatodoxy to Aesthetics: Aleksei Losev’s Concept of Symbol_, Teresa Obolevitch reconstructs and analyses the category of symbol in broad historical and philosophical context. Losev is recognized as the “last classic” of Russian religious philosophy of the Silver Age. He was a monk active in the academic field of philosophy and classical philology. The volume presents the ancient and patristic roots of onomatodoxy and stresses symbolical nature of the divine name, paying special attention to Losev’s understanding of symbol.

This article is an editorial introduction to a special issue of Studies in East European Thought devoted to neopatristics. The circumstances of the creation of the neopatristic synthesis announced by Georges Florovsky during the First Orthodox Congress in Athens are considered. The main philosophical and theological aspects that are currently discussed in the context of patristic renewal are also addressed. In particular, it is shown that the sophiology of Sergius Bulgakov also fits into the patristic paradigm. Finally, the topics of the articles included in this special issue are presented.

The letter from Georges Florovsky to Davis McCaughey is a reflection after reading the Report The Era of Atomic Power: Report of a Commission (1946). Florovsky gives his own arguments against the development of research concerning nuclear weapons and their use. These include: treating an attempt at a technical transformation of the world as a human claim to put oneself in God’s place, i.e., to be a God-man. Another group of indictments against the use of the atomic bomb concerned ethical issues and human responsibility for the war. Florovsky’s letter is his contribution to the discussion on the threat posed by the atomic bomb.

This article presents the context of Georges Florovsky’s letter to Davis McCaughey. The creation of the atomic bomb and the philosophical and theological challenges it caused are also presented. The content of the Report The Era of Atomic Power: of a Commission, which was initiated by the British Council of Churches, and McCaughey’s participation in its writing, are presented as well. Finally, Florovsky’s attitude towards science and technical progress, and the relevance of Florovsky’s letter are also shown.

The article contains a comparative analysis of the thought of Russian émigré philosopher Semen Frank and one of the most prominent representatives of process philosophy and theology Charles Hartshorne. Among the points of convergence, their integral vision of reality was pointed out. Frank’s and Hartshorne’s approaches to the question of cognition of God were considered, with special attention paid to their interpretation of the ontological proof. Hartshorne was familiar with Russian thought and even wrote reviews on Zenkovsky and Lossky’s classic books on the history of Russian philosophy, where he mentioned Frank more than once. One cannot speak of the two thinkers’ influence on each other, but rather of a common philosophical heritage going back to Plato.

In the article the assumptions are analyzed of V. S. Soloviov\\\'s (1853- 1900) metaphysics presented in his Criticism ofPrinciples. When forming a metaphysics Soloviov considers and subjects to criticism two theories: Hegel\\\'s extreme (in the Russian philosopher\\\'s term - \\\"abstract\\\") idealism, and the positivists\\\' radical empiricism. Soloviov perceives resolution of the difficulties seen in these theories in the conception of the so-called all-unity. According to this conception every being has its ontic foundation in the Absolute, which makes possible an inner connection between all things on the metaphysical and, respectively, epistemological level. In the present study it was found that Soloviov\\\'s metaphysics is based on the following assumptions: (1) the thesis about the possibility of cognizing \\\'a thing in itself; (2) determining a close connection that occurs between the ontological and epistemological order; (3) the conviction that analysis of epistemological conception leads to the ontological \\\'truth about the thing\\\'. Acceptance of these propositions is connected with the Russian philosopher\\\'s religious beliefs concerning the existence of an ultimate foundation of reality, and his detailed critical-historical analyses are completely subjected to the aspiration to create a theist metaphysics on the basis of this Absolute principle, that is of God

The article presents Fr. Georgy Florovsky’s conception of a neo-patristic synthesis (developed by other orthodox theologians) and discusses some polemical aspects of this project. The neo-patristic synthesis is an approach to development of the patristic thought in the contemporary world and application it to the different branches of knowledge, including science. According to Florovsky science has an imperfect character, because to know the empirical world is possible only from the theological point of view. This position is shared by Alexei Nesteruk who claims that the patristic solutions can be treated as a model for the issues of relationship between science and religion. In this way a postulate of the methodological independency of science is breached. We show that this position is also is not accordance with the patristic thought because the Fathers of the Church were very open towards to the intellectual heritage of their time. Although they stressed that secular knowledge is inferior to theology, nevertheless this statement should be taken in the broad historical context of the defense of Christianity. Eastern Christian attitude to science is very sensitive for the transcendence and takes into account the anthropological dimension. In the conclusion we admit that these aspects of the patristic approach can be useful for the reflection about relationship between science and religion, under the condition that they will not break the principle of the methodological naturalism

Semyon Frank opposed the Neo-Kantian School and admitted the real existence of the objects of cognition. He treated ontologism as essential to the entire movement of Russian religious philosophy. For Frank, one can only know about something thanks to the absolute, which exists prior to the knowing subject. Ontologism, affirming the priority of being over cognition, has a great significance not only for metaphysics and epistemology, but also for the philosophy of religion. In particular, Frank taught that the most privileged mode of cognition of God is intuition, an immediate experience of God or faith. Intuition is at the heart of the ontological proof, which can be found in St. Anselm, Descartes, and Frank himself. Frank dedicated a number of articles to this topic: “K istorii ontologicheskogo dokazatel’stva”, “Ontologicheskoe dokazatel’stvo bytiya Boga”, as well as texts recently discovered at the Bakhmeteff Archive, including “Dokazatel’stvo bytiya Boga”. In this way, Russian ontologism leads to a new interpretation of the traditional ontological proof, one which acknowledges the existence of God, not on the basis of arguments resting on His definition, but on the basis of the intuitive recognition of His being.

In this article I compare philosophical investigations of S. Frank and epistemology of Kant and neo-Kantians of Marburg school. In accordance with Kant’s conclusions, neo-Kantians claimed that an object of cognition is unknown (x) which is not “given” but “made” by a subject during the process of cognition. Whereas Frank, beginning with an analysis of judgment concluded that an object of cognition (unknown x) is Absolute or all-unity which really exists. Frank insisted that Absolute enables every cognition. Contrary to neo-Kantians, Frank stressed the primacy of being over cognition. These characteristics in Russian philosophy and was named by the term “ontologism.”

Semën Frank (1877–1950) considered the Universe as the “all-unity.” According to him, everything is a part of the all-unity, which has a divine character. God is present in the world, but his nature is incomprehensible. In this article I analyze two consequences of Frank’s panentheistic view of the relation between science and theology. Firstly, the limits of scientific knowledge allow recognition of the mystery of the world and the transcendence of God. Secondly, Frank claimed that nature is a “trace” of God and the manifestation of the absolute reality, i.e. the all-unity. As a result, both science and theology lead to the knowledge of God, although we cannot understand His essence.